Keap vs Salesforce

Both Salesforce and Keap are cloud-based solutions, although there are mobile apps available as an alternative to accessing your customer data through a browser.

When it comes to deployment, Keap provides a quick-start training session, with an optional three-day on-site training program and live demos available. The compulsory onboarding program starts at $99.

Being tailored more to the needs of big businesses with multiple branches, Salesforce usually takes longer to deploy, and there’s a steep learning curve for getting accustomed to some of its more advanced features.

Salesforce's Jump Start program, which costs an extra $5,000, provides eight six-hour meetings to keep deployment times within two weeks.

Keap isn’t as feature-rich as Salesforce, given its very different target market, but that can be a good thing when it comes to avoiding feature bloat and unnecessarily complex onboarding processes.

Keap's dashboard provides a valuable overview of the features that are most important to your business, alongside core insights to measure performance.

Its core features include a drag-and-drop campaign builder, landing page builder, website tracking tools, email marketing and reporting, marketing automation, invoices and quoting. These are all powerful tools and can be more than enough for smaller businesses.

Salesforce provides a similar feature set in terms of core CRM functionalities, but with a lot more scope for complexity and deep customization.

Sales Cloud offers advanced lead management, enabling sales teams to convert leads into opportunities by tracking them across a wide range of channels including social media, email and web. You can also generate and send quotes to B2B clients.

If you're chiefly looking for a marketing tool, Marketing Cloud delivers impeccably personalized customer journeys across email, mobile, social, digital advertising and DMP. There's a lot of scope for built-in automation, segmentation and 1-1 journey building.

With other products in the Salesforce family, including Pardot – their advanced B2B automation software – the sky's the limit for digitizing and customizing your workflows.

Keap provides an interactive customer pipeline feature to give you a complete overview of the effectiveness of your marketing and sales campaigns. With Keap, it's also easy to create simple reports that are laser-focused on the KPIs that matter most to you.

Create records that only show the information your sales team needs to reach out, follow up, and close.

You can keep track of your leads and clients by monitoring activities with customizable dashboards that display key metrics such as revenue per customer, demographical attributes and previous interactions with your business.

Salesforce offers advanced reporting and analytics that can forecast sales, identify campaign performance issues and much more. With the mobile app, sales reps can also make key decisions on the move.

Another powerful feature of Salesforce is Einstein, an artificial intelligence solution that helps you proactively identify opportunities and automate routine workflows. This is available as an add-on product.

Keap provides an all-in-one CRM and marketing automation solution tailored to the needs of small businesses, whereas the comparative offering from Salesforce focuses on mid-market and enterprise-level customers.

Keap pricing

Keap prices start at $79 for one user per month for up to 500 contacts for the Keap Grow package, increasing to $149 and $199 for Keap Pro and Infusionsoft.

Salesforce pricing

Salesforce pricing depends on the product you choose, but the short answer is that it's likely to be much more costly than Keap.

Sales Cloud has four product tiers, with prices starting at $25 per user per month, increasing to $300 for the Unlimited package.

Within Marketing Cloud, you can opt for an Email, Mobile and Web Marketing plan to personalize and automate customer journeys starting at $400/month.

Salesforce also offers high-end B2B marketing automation software Pardot with prices starting at $1,250 for 10,000 contacts.

Salesforce is far more scalable than Keap if you plan on growing a huge company, but it’s also overkill for smaller organizations and many B2C businesses.

1. You have a small business

If you have a small business, or you primarily serve B2C markets, the lower costs and easier implementation process makes Keap a stronger choice over Salesforce.

Don't get us wrong: Keap isn't a low-budget choice and it doesn't scrimp on quality in the slightest. It's one of the most reliable CRMs on the market. But compared to Salesforce, it is cheaper and much more accessible for small businesses.

One potential shortcoming of Keap if you're budget-sensitive is that all new users are required to enroll in an onboarding program, with prices starting at $99. However, this also helps ensure users get maximum value from the platform in less time.

2. You want more simplicity

While Salesforce is built for mid-market and enterprise-level corporations, Keap offers a more affordable and straightforward feature set with a laser-focus on small business needs.

If you don't need all of the bells and whistles, Keap is likely to be a better match for your business than Salesforce.

3. You're on a tighter budget

Infusionsoft, Keap's top-tier all-in-one product for CRM and automation, is still a tiny fraction of the cost of Salesforce.

While Infusionsoft by Keap starts at $199/month, you can easily be paying several thousand dollars a month for Salesforce. Salesforce Pardot Growth – aimed at B2B companies – starts at $1,250/mo.

1. You have a mid-size to enterprise-size company

Salesforce is primarily targeted towards the mid-market and enterprise B2B sectors, making it an obvious contender to consider if your organization fits into these categories.

2. You want the most scope for customization

If you have the resources, Salesforce provides an unparalleled level of customization.

Though costly, you have the flexibility to add many other Salesforce products to your core CRM, such as the Email, Mobile and Web Marketing Studio package (from $400/month), social media marketing, digital advertising, or advanced B2B marketing automation.

3. You can handle the complexity

Salesforce requires extensive and lengthy onboarding and training programs to get the most out of it. For support and ongoing maintenance, it also helps to have a dedicated IT department. If not, you can outsource deployment and maintenance to a specialized Salesforce consultancy firm.

If you're familiar with the Salesforce product family or have the budget and resources for in-house or outsourced support, it can be a fantastic choice for larger companies looking for enterprise-level solutions.